The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration (CCMA), an organisation meant to resolve labour disputes, could find itself in demand for such services after a breakdown in negotiations with employees over wage increases.
Members of the Commission Staff Association (CSA), an in-house trade union that claims membership of 90% of workers of the CCMA, have threatened to go on strike over an offer to increase wages just 1.5%, way below the inflation rate and that projected by the Reserve Bank over the next two years.
The commission has been hurt by crippling budget cuts from the Treasury, which are set to reach about R500m in the medium term.
In a letter dated November 12, which Business Day has seen, CSA general secretary Nkosinathi Mkhwanazi told workers that salary negotiations had failed after six months. Their initial demand of a 10% increase, since lowered to 6%, was based on an increased workload over the past two years, he said.
The demand on the table is a percentage point above the annual reading for September and is at the upper end of the Bank’s 3%-6% target range.
If the threatened strike goes ahead, operations could grind to a halt at an organisation that is already beset with huge delays and backlogs, leaving workers who are fighting dismissals in the lurch. The caseload also increased due to the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown restrictions, which resulted in the CCMA prohibiting walk-ins at its branches.
The organisation is regarded as one of the most important institutions created after the end of apartheid and is seen as crucial to maintaining relatively stable labour relations. It has been hit by funding cuts just as demand for its services soars due to retrenchments and other cost-cutting measures by companies struggling in an economy that shrank the most in a century in 2020 and lost more than 1-million jobs.
The CCMA has had to shelve some of its programmes, including the hosting of its annual labour conference, after its R1bn budget was cut by R99m, with steeper cuts of R170m and R231m pencilled in over the next two years of the medium-term expenditure framework.
Business Day reported in March that the cuts forced the CCMA to outsource its dispute referral system to corner stores and internet cafes, with security guards and touts exploiting workers and charging up to R900 to make copies of and complete dispute referral forms.
Mkhwanazi stated in his letter that the parties failed to reach an agreement on Friday and the union “decided to declare a deadlock when the CCMA blatantly refused to table a reasonable offer” or move from its initial offer of a 1.5% increase.
“The union members rejected the offer and are calling for a strike ... a strike will result [in] the CCMA offices closing down. The vulnerable public that desperately requires the CCMA services will be left in the cold again,” he said.
When contacted for comment, Mkhwanazi declined to comment, saying this was an internal matter that the parties were dealing with.
‘Urgent engagement’
CCMA director Cameron Morajane said the declaration of a dispute merely meant “that the parties must further engage on an urgent basis to attempt to resolve the impasse”.
It is only when this “urgent engagement fails that the CSA may refer a dispute for conciliation”. Engagements are continuing. “No pending industrial action has been instituted.”
In a note to employees to mark the 25th anniversary of the CCMA, which Business Day has seen, Morajane said that by November 7, more than 3.5-million case referrals had been received by the commission since its establishment on November 11 1996.
“The CCMA’s caseload has been on an upward trajectory year on year since its establishment,” he said.
Morajane said it had not been smooth sailing for the CCMA since the pandemic reached SA early in 2020.
“During this time, the CCMA gave birth to new digital means, such as virtual hearings ... ensuring that it continued to serve its users uninterruptedly.”
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